Research Compound Silo: Gateway to the Alien City

The Research Compound Silo, usually called the Silo, was a sector of the Sovereign Colonies' Facility Two on Tau Volantis. It was the main entrance to the buried Alien City that lay below the compound, and it was the shaft through which the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces lowered their people to the Alien Machine and raised recovered artifacts to the surface.

Layout#

The Silo lay below the compound to the east, and its entrance was set right beside the Geology Sector. A security checkpoint stood between the Geology Sector and the Silo courtyards, sealed behind heavy blast doors, its main room fitted with a control panel and a bank of security monitors. Beyond it, the structure was built around an immense elevator shaft, with multiple platforms anchored to the sides of the descent. Those platforms carried heavy machinery, among them the massive cranes used to bring artifacts up, and several served as storage for artifacts, munitions, or equipment.

A loading bay formed the first and uppermost section, set at the surface floor with several entry ways, including one from the courtyard. Below it ran a series of crane and storage platforms, an ordnance storage area, and an overpass of hydraulics and staging platforms crossing to the far side. The Silo was also tied into the ventilation system that carried clean air to the Alien City below, its tunnels running from the surface down into the buried halls and wide enough that a small ship could pass through them.

History#

The Silo served as the working throat of Facility Two, the route by which the Sovereign Colonies moved between the surface and the Alien Machine far below. Its courtyard near the Geology Sector doubled as a temporary warehouse for artifacts in transit.

It was in that courtyard that the colony's end was sealed. General Spencer Mahad shot the soldier Tim Caufman, purged the Codex of the information it held, and then took his own life there. After the Scenario Five kill order was carried out across the facility, the courtyard was left filled with the hanging corpses of S.C.A.F. personnel.

Generations later the Silo became a goal in the final struggle over Tau Volantis. When the true purpose of the Alien Machine was uncovered, and unwittingly explained to Jacob Danik, the Circle raced to the Research Compound Silo to take its elevator down to the Machine. Danik and his soldiers boarded the lift while the rest of the Unitologist force spread out across the platforms to hold the shaft against pursuit.